Controversial East Penn books remain on reading list

School directors put off a vote until formal process is followed on complaint.

Emmaus senior Neil Ren, age 17, speaks as the East Penn School board prepares… (MICHAEL KUBEL, THE MORNING…)

September 25, 2012|By Patrick Lester, Of The Morning Call

The suddenly controversial books "Prep" and "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test" will remain on the East Penn School District's summer reading list for high school students — at least for now.

School directors on Monday night chose not to vote on whether to keep the works of Tom Wolfe and Curtis Sittenfeld as summer reading material in response to parents who suggested that sexual content in the books was "inappropriate" and "pornographic" and one school director who agreed.

School board President Charles Ballard warned the board to put off taking action until after the district goes through the formal process of reviewing a written complaint made to the district Monday night.

"We have a very serious constitutional law issue here," Ballard said. "The Supreme Court has already ruled that school boards have no right to censor material unless they use a process that is facially unbiased … ."

"Before taking board action," he added, "we should have an investigation, a finding of facts and a committee report providing us with a rational basis for taking any action. To do otherwise would subject the district to potential legal action."

Superintendent Thomas Seidenberger said he didn't know how long it would take to review the complaint. He said the administration has to discuss who will lead the group that will consider it.

The board's decision to hold off came after some emotional pleas from both supporters and opponents of keeping the reading list intact.

"We don't want to be sheltered," Emmaus High senior Neil Ren told school directors. "It's counterproductive to cover up things that are prevalent in society."

Ren and Isaiah Zukowski told the board they had a petition signed by 125 people urging the school board to keep the books as optional summer reading.

"It's an issue of intellectual freedom and we need to preserve that," Zukowski said. He and Ren said the student body is "fairly united" on the issue.

But not everyone was supportive of the books. Garrett Rhoads Jr. read an excerpt of "Prep" that contains sexual content, before calling it "reprehensible trash."

"I'm not asking you to ban any book from the library," Rhoads said. "I'm asking you to stop promoting sexually explicit material to 13 and 14-year-old children."

Jeff Lotte, one of the two people who initially brought the books to the school board's attention this month, said he wasn't seeking to have a book banned.

Kevin Bartholomew of Emmaus echoed that sentiment, adding: "Just take them off the list. Don't introduce it to my kids."

Meanwhile, former School Director Terry Richwine said the book flap is a "manufactured crisis orchestrated by a group looking to tear down the East Penn School District."

School Director Julian Stolz requested a vote on the future inclusion of the two books after Lotte and Paula Wittman brought up the books. Wittman called the books "inappropriate" and "pornographic."

Stolz insisted before the meeting that taking the books off a reading list would not be censorship.

"This is removing explicit sexual content from the school district's recommended list," he said.

"Prep," the story of a girl from Indiana who goes to a boarding school in New England, is among several books on the ninth-grade list for general education and college prep students.

Wolfe's nonfiction account of author Ken Kesey's drug-induced bus journey across the country is on the 10th-grade list for general education and college prep students. "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test" has been challenged by East Penn residents in the past.

Students are required to read two books — one fiction and one nonfiction — from a list of many titles. The students aren't required to read "Prep" or "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test."

The reading list warns parents and students that "some selections are focused toward mature readers."

"We encourage parents to read the book descriptions carefully with their children and assist them in selecting interesting, appropriate titles for their summer reading," the reading list says.

The books serve as the basis for an in-class, five-paragraph essay that students are required to write.

Seidenberger said there is a process in place for district residents to challenge books on the reading list. The district did not receive an official complaint about the books until Monday, before the school board meeting.

Ballard said "Prep" was challenged in 2011 and removed from Eyer Middle School's library. But a 2011 committee recommended that it be retained at Emmaus High School. "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test" was challenged in 2007.

A number of book publishing and anti-censorship organizations have chimed in on the debate, giving their support to district staff members who put together the summer reading list for students.

The controversy erupted days before the Sept. 30 start of Banned Books Week, which was started in 1982 in response to a rising number of book challenges.

"It is hard to imagine any legitimate reason for the books to be removed. If students were precluded from reading literature because of sexual content," the letter says, "they would be deprived of exposure to vast amounts of important material, including Shakespeare and major religious texts including the Bible."

The letter says that the removal of books based on objections to their content, rather than a review of their educational and literary merits, "would raise serious constitutional concerns."

Among the organizations that signed the letter: National Coalition Against Censorship; American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression; Comic Book Legal Defense Fund; Association of American Publishers; Independent Book Publishers Association; National Council of Teachers of English; and PEN American Center.